Posted 3 years ago on Jan. 25, 2014, 9:09 a.m. EST by flip
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Skills Gap a Convenient Myth

By Toni Gilpin

Source: Labor Notes

Haven't seen too many "Help Wanted" signs lately? You haven't been looking hard enough. At factories across the country, thousands of good jobs are going begging.

If that doesn’t sound quite right to you, take it up with the National Association of Manufacturers. NAM and other industry groups insist at least 600,000 factory positions remain open.

These vacancies are supposed to be the result of a “skills gap”—a shortage of workers with the right stuff for today’s high-tech factories. The gap looms large in high-level discussions of what ails the American economy—and it drives much public policy.

“America wants a country that builds things,” says Caterpillar CEO Doug Oberhelman, industry’s leading skills gap spokesman (and board chair of the NAM), “but we have a problem. We don’t have the people we need.”

Politicians of both parties echo this refrain. “Businesses cannot find workers with the right skills,” says Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, and Republican Senator Rob Portman agrees: “Let’s close the skills gap and get Americans working again.”

Such bipartisan agreement is reflected in budget priorities. Retraining is a touchstone for the Obama White House, and since the president took office more than 18 billion federal dollars have gone to job training programs. Republican Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin recently committed $8.5 million to training.

Although unemployment continues high, the political focus has shifted away from creating new jobs. Instead it’s on retooling our education system to align with the skilled positions said to be already out there.

Just one hitch: there’s little evidence a “skills gap” exists.

WHY ARE WAGES STAGNANT?

A host of academic studies have debunked the notion—but you don’t need a Ph.D. to figure it out. You just need to recognize the law of supply and demand.

“It’s hard not to break out laughing,” one economist noted recently. “If there’s a skills shortage, there has to be rises in wages [for skilled workers]. It’s basic economics.”

Yet wages in manufacturing—even for skilled workers—are stagnant at best.

Peter Cappelli, professor of management at the Wharton School of Business, hears frequent complaints from manufacturers claiming they can’t find enough machinists. “Yet,” Cappelli notes, “the pay for those positions has dropped 20 percent in real terms over the past 20 years, while skill requirements for many of those jobs have indeed risen.”

Studies from Illinois and Wisconsin on welding jobs—where employers often cite shortages of available workers—demonstrate that welders’ wages, as well, have decreased over the past decade, and there are thousands more unemployed welders looking for work than there are projected openings.

“We’ve probably all seen the TV shows where new homebuyers go out to look for a new house,” Cappelli says, “and they always are shocked to discover they cannot get what they wanted at the price they want to pay. The real estate agent never concludes the problem is a housing shortage. The buyers have to learn either to pay more or expect less. Is that happening with employers? It does not appear to be.”

When pressed, one manufacturing CEO acknowledged that for him, the “skills gap” meant an inability to find enough highly qualified applicants, with no “union-type experience,” willing to start at $10 an hour.

“That’s not a skills mismatch or even a labor shortage problem in any meaningful sense,” Marc Levine, professor of history and economic development at the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee, makes clear. “That’s an effort to secure cheap and docile labor.”

“National data on wages, hours, the ‘job gap’ (the ratio of job seekers to available openings), and the skills requirements of projected job openings reveal no evidence of a skills mismatch in national labor markets,” Levine says.

JOBS GAP

In fact, the real deficit we face is a jobs gap. There are still many more unemployed Americans, across every sector of our economy, than there are positions to put them in. “Unemployment is high,” one analyst notes, “not because workers lack the right education or skills, but because employers have not seen demand for their goods and services pick up enough to need to significantly ramp up hiring.

“It is not the right workers we are lacking, it is work.”

“Training doesn’t create jobs,” says Anthony Carnevale, director of Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. “Jobs create training. And people get that backwards all the time.”

Economist Paul Krugman states bluntly that claims of a skills gap provide cover for those “powerful forces [that] are ideologically opposed to the whole idea of government action on a sufficient scale to jump-start the economy.”

UNTOLD STORIES

Cat CEO Oberhelman castigates the country’s “failing” schools for not turning out fully employable products—and faults Americans for not pursuing the rewarding careers he says are available in today’s factories.

Stories like this one, from a Wisconsin professor, don’t make it into Oberhelman’s script:

Take my former student, John. He did everything we ask young workers to do, earning two journeyman cards while working and attending Milwaukee Area Technical College full-time.

John left Briggs when it began moving jobs to low-wage states and Mexico. But his new employer, Rockwell, began outsourcing to nonunion, low-wage plants even before it eliminated all hourly workers last year.

So John started over again at Harley-Davidson. But, a year and a half ago, Harley laid John off.

CEOs like Oberhelman create the hype about a skills gap and then use it to duck responsibility for the joblessness they are responsible for.

The blame and the costs are offloaded onto workers, obliged to bankroll their own training, or onto taxpayers, as public schools and community colleges scramble to make their graduates more employable.

MIND THE OTHER GAP

It’s hypocritical, to put it mildly, for employers to bemoan the shortage of skilled labor while they lay off workers (including skilled ones) and pay less to those they retain. But their whining deflects attention from record profits and lavish executive compensation. .

A recent example comes courtesy of Boeing. CEO Jim McNerney has said the U.S. faces an acute “competitive gap” brought on by “insufficient numbers of capable workers.”

Nonetheless, Boeing recently threatened its highly skilled (and unionized) workforce in Everett, Washington, that the company would move its new 777X plane out of state if workers didn’t take concessions. They gave in.

“Capable” workers were not Boeing’s goal. Cheap and compliant ones are what the company was after. Reflect for a moment about which sort of people you prefer to build the airplanes you travel in.

So, while the fictional skills gap provides a distraction useful to CEOs and politicians, workers (and taxpayers) should keep focused on what matters most: our ever-rising level of income inequality.

That’s the gap that needs minding.

Toni Gilpin is an educator and labor historian, and co-author of On Strike for Respect: The Clerical and Technical Workers’ Strike at Yale University, 1984-85.

The ''Skills Gap IS a Convenient Myth'' ! No fkn doubt about it !! Oblah-blah can say that because he is clearly a clueless, co-opted, corporate-controlled Neoclassical, Neoliberal, Neocon STOOGE dirtbag !!!

''Neoclassical economics: The school that arose in the last quarter of the 19th century, stripping away the classical concept of economic rent as unearned income. By the late 20th century the term “neoclassical” had come to connote a deductive body of free-trade theory using circular reasoning by tautology, excluding discussion of property, debt and the financial sector’s role in general, taking the existing institutional environment for granted. (See Marginalism and Parallel Universe, and contrast with Structural Problem and Systems Analysis.)'' & further consider that ...

''The political intent is to make employees feel that even though their paychecks are being squeezed, they will gain as stockholders and home owners. The hope is that people will overlook the (completely) disproportionate share of assets owned by the top 3% and 10% of the population. (“Sorry you lost your job. We hope you made a killing on your home, so that you can refinance your mortgage or take out an equity loan to keep up your consumption spending.”)'' Thanx for an important forum-post flip and in real
solidarity @ 99% workers everywhere :

apparently some Italian group invited Hudson and kelton to talk there on the subject of money and the economy. very informative - how about this for starters! -(c. 17:12) “Abba Lerner was an economist, a contemporary of John Maynard Keynes. He saw this very clearly. He said:

“‘By virtue of the power to create or destroy money by fiat and its power to take money away from people through taxation, [the State] is in a position to keep the rate of spending in the economy at the level required [for full employment].’.......... now this is Stephanie -
(c. 11:19) “The government, when it issues its own currency, and goes into debt in that currency can always pay its debt, can never go broke, can never run out of money. It can afford anything that is for sale in that currency. It doesn’t need to borrow its own currency. And it can set its own interest rate. It does not have to pay what markets want. It does not become a victim to speculation, to bond vigilantes. It has additional policy space. It can do things for its economy and for its people that a government that does not have a sovereign currency cannot do................Dr. Michael Hudson (c. 19:10): “We are all overwhelmed to see how many people are here. [Applause]

“Our message is very simple. And that is why it is threatening. From Margaret Thatcher to President Obama, you were told that there is no alternative. And we are here—and will spend the next two days—telling you that there is an alternative. And we will spell out what the alternative is.

“What we are seeing now is a fight for what is going to be the rest of the 21st century by creating a new kind of class, a new class much like the invasions of Europe a thousand years ago. A thousand years ago, invaders from the north and from Italy would grab land and grab public utilities by military means. But today—ever since the United States went off gold in 1971—aggressors can no longer afford military war. So, what you have today is a new kind of a war. It’s a financial war. You can get by privatisation and financialisation what armies used to get by force of arms. This is not the class war that people spoke of a hundred years ago. It is a financial war. And it is a war that classical economists warned against.

(c. 20:51) “300 years of classical political economy sought to get rid of landlords and bankers. A hundred years ago people spoke of technology. Nobody believed that the vested interests could fight back. But they did fight back in the way that parasites do in biological nature. I’ve read in the Italian newspapers—coming over on the airplane—that people talk about parasites. And people think about parasites, as taking the host’s energy and lifeblood. But, in biology, the smart parasites do something else: They take over the brain of the host. They make the brain think that the parasite is part of the body, to be protected.

(c. 21:53) “In America, President Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, say the economy cannot survive without bailing out the banks, without bailing out the debt, without making the gamblers and the cleptocrats whole on what they have taken. The production economy, the consumption economy, the real economy is being sacrificed to the financial sector. But matters don’t have to be this way. There is an alternative. And we will be spelling out the alternative in the next two days.

''Change is coming anyway. We cannot abide an ever-greater share of the nation's income and wealth going to the top while median household incomes continue too drop, one out of five of our children living in dire poverty, and big money taking over our democracy.

''At some point, working people, students, and the broad public will have had enough. They will reclaim our economy and our democracy. This has been the central lesson of American history. Reform is less risky than revolution, but the longer we wait the more likely it will be the latter.'' from :

''When US corporations send jobs offshore, the GDP, consumer income, tax base, and careers associated with the jobs go abroad with the jobs. Corporations gain the additional profits at large costs to the economy in terms of less employment, less economic growth, reduced state, local and federal tax revenues, wider deficits, and impairments of social services.

''When policymakers permitted banks to become independent of market discipline, they made the banks an unresolved burden on the economy. Authorities have provided no honest report on the condition of the banks. It remains to be seen if the Federal Reserve can create enough money to monetize enough debt to rescue the banks without collapsing the US dollar. It would have been far cheaper to let the banks fail and be reorganized.'' from :

I will get you the Chomsky piece but first this tidbit - I could not access the site for the last few days and thought I was banned! kept getting 504 gateway timed out - anyway I emailed the website support system and got this response and now I am somehow back on?? ..........Give it a try now.

What on earth are you talking about with the democratic party? We don't have anything to do with them. Not in the slightest. Don't believe the lies. I mean... we've got all this stuff about revolution on the website. :rolls eyes: You should know better if you've been on the site for the past few years :P

''The Democratic Party'' ?!!! Say WHAT ?!! Who mentioned THEM ?! HUGE difference between the well intentioned and increasingly desperate voters & The Establishment 1% Dem-Party-On-The-Hill, I would humbly suggest. Also see :

“The government, when it issues its own currency, and goes into debt in that currency can always pay its debt, can never go broke, can never run out of money. It can afford anything that is for sale in that currency. It doesn’t need to borrow its own currency. And it can set its own interest rate. It does not have to pay what markets want. It does not become a victim to speculation, to bond vigilantes. It has additional policy space. It can do things for its economy and for its people that a government that does not have a sovereign currency cannot do.'' (SK) Brilliant !! And yEP ... Dr. Hudson is 100% right, in that - 'Parasites have taken over their host's brain' !!!

Excellent flip !!! Absolutely great post, quotes and comment !! Thanx ! To be honest, I'd never even heard of Stephanie Kelton but the reference to Abba Lerner was a really great reminder of a very great man :

yea I think that is the most straight forward discussion of money that I have seen. I just looked at the earthship post - I have lots of old info on sustainable etc housing. there are so many good ideas out there! did you see this from amy about the movie "garbage warrior" ...... "We were driving along—from Durango, Colorado, to Taos, New Mexico, when we saw this remarkable collection, a fascinating collection, of structures scattered through the sage brush along the road. We pulled over and found Mike Reynolds consulting with a carpenter. He brought us into one of the first houses he built. He’s been documented in a documentary called Garbage Warrior. And he gave us a tour of one of the sustainable-living homes he created.

MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Greenhouse, which is a buffer zone for the house, to make the house stay warmer, hold its heat longer. The plants eat the sewage and provide food. And so, it just creates a whole different environment, a tropical environment, out of the super-cold desert, high desert environment.

AMY GOODMAN: So the house is a jungle?

MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Yeah, it’s pretty much, mostly, 50 percent, a jungle. We usually have bananas. We just harvested bananas here. This is tilapia. You can fish here. My eight-year-old grandson just did it on camera; he caught a fish here in like 30 seconds. And we grow them for protein. We have chickens out there. And so, the idea with this is to show that you can produce food, as enough to stay alive, in your own home.

AMY GOODMAN: And what is in—what is in these pillars of the house?

MICHAEL REYNOLDS: This is just holding up this little chamber up here that’s going to be a hot tub.

AMY GOODMAN: And what are these materials, though?

MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Those are just beer cans laid in cement, like bricks.

AMY GOODMAN: And bottles.

MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Beer cans and bottles laid in cement.

AMY GOODMAN: And why beer cans and bottles?

MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Because they’re natural bricks that every—they’re indigenous to the entire planet, and they’re all over the world. But this is the—see this? This stays this temperature year-round, no matter what.

AMY GOODMAN: This is a sort of a moist, warm, cool.

MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: All at once.

MICHAEL REYNOLDS: In the wintertime, this feels warm; in the summertime, it feels cool.

AMY GOODMAN: And this is made with the back—

MICHAEL REYNOLDS: All the walls are made with—all these interior walls, except for—some of them are cans, but most of the walls are the tires pounded with earth.

AMY GOODMAN: And why tires?

MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Because tires are indigenous to the entire planet. When you beat dirt into them, they hold temperature and stabilize—stabilize the temperature, basically.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, all the back walls are made of these tires. And where do you get tires?

MICHAEL REYNOLDS: From the tire stores. They have to pay to take them to the dumps.

AMY GOODMAN: How many tires are there? Where do you—I mean—

MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Oh, there’s—we have a deal with the county. We have thousands of tires. Hello?

AMY GOODMAN: My goodness. We’re going into the bathroom right now.

MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Hello? OK, we’re going to go in and out of the [inaudible].

AMY GOODMAN: OK, we’re going into the bathroom. Can you describe this bathroom to us?

MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Well, the bathroom is just—it’s sort of in the jungle. It’s a sculpted bathtub. The toilet flushes into the septic system, which runs back into the planters. And the planters use it all. The sewage system is totally contained.

AMY GOODMAN: So why doesn’t it stink?

MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Well, it’s biology. Sewage doesn’t have to stink if you understand biology. Like, there’s a lot of things in nature that are really rancid, but nature takes care of it. And we’re just taking nature’s advice on how to deal with sewage rather than dumping raw sewage into a bay or an ocean.

AMY GOODMAN: Does this break rules?

MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Oh, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: What are the rules it breaks?

MICHAEL REYNOLDS: Every one of them. It’s just—there are codes and rules. Now, we got variances, and we’ve got things in place. But the codes and rules are so stringent and so rigid that they are—they make it so we have to evolve very slowly as we try to break these—try to evolve these rules. And this—we’re on a planet now that is changing rapidly. And humans have to evolve rapidly to be able to stay alive on this planet. And the rules and the codes keep us from evolving rapidly. And I was pushing it too hard; that’s why they took my license. I’m trying to get us evolving faster. Yeah, I might make a mistake, and there might be a smell or something, but look at the mistakes they made with atomic energy. You know, that’s killing people and destroying continents. So—

Mainly thanx to you, I've got 'Watch DemocracyNow!' down as a resolution this year. I was an almost daily viewer from 2003-2009/10 but got out of the habit but it is the sine qua non, of progressive news. The 'War and Peace' report she styles it and tho' a li'l weak and quiet on some matters, Amy is GR8 !

A couple of recent articles in Salon both deal with a subject that even 20 years ago would have been unthinkable, that the United States of America is becoming a third world nation because of its failure to look after many of its people.

agreed - they have no business here - unless they are paid to do it?? one would think that they would spend their time and effort in the mainstream dem party not on an occupy site. my wife works occasionally for our local congressman - palone. he is a good guy with mostly good ideas. no problem there as far as I am concerned - we are all moving the ball in the same direction. unlike the nut job below. the comment from shooz is a perfect example - I usually do not know what he is talking about and that must be by design. he cannot be that stupid - it is always a question or comment that is off topic or nonsensical. I think the best tactic is to ignore him but I applaud your effort

thanks for keeping this post at the top of the list. we want as many people reading it as possible. I'm sure that is your only reason for responding - with what you wrote there can be no other explanation.

I would like to ask you to quit talking bad about me to other people in other threads.

It's cowardly. You should stop.

now.......here's the proof !!!

[-] 3 points by bensdad (8977) 1 year ago
here is what VQkag2 & I are working on:
We can do what 80% of Americans say they want
We can do what 1,900,000 Americans signed
We can do what 363 local & state resolutions call for
We can do what 1,309 American mayors endorsed
Virtually every OWS goal –
jobs, taxes, government honesty, energy, environment, economy
all go back to EXACTLY one place
MONEY IN POLITICS
And there is EXACTLY one first step:
╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬
A constitutional amendment to
Overturn Citizens United and Corporate Personhood
╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬
▬► http://corporationsarenotpeople.webuda.com ◄▬
╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬═╬
For a complete analysis of the amendment issue,
and the text of all amendments,
and our comparison of all of the amendments,
and the Citizens United case transcript,
and the Citizens United decision,
and the Buckley decision,
and analysis of corporate personhood,
and analysis of Article III,
and the ABC News poll on CU / CP,
and the PFAW poll on CU / CP,
and 70+ videos on CU / CP from
Chomsky, Hedges, Witchcraft, Reich,
Warren, Lessig, Hartmann, Maher, Sanders, Hightower, etc.
and our voting bloc petition & plan.
http://corporationsarenotpeople.webuda.com
no password or signup
JOIN our OWS Working Group:
http://nycga.net/groups/restore-democracy
REGULAR MEETINGS:
Wednesdays 5:30-7:30PM @ 60 Wall St – The Atrium
↥twinkle ↧stinkle reply permalink

[-] 2 points by flip (4317) 1 year ago
i like it - keep it up
↥twinkle ↧stinkle reply permalink

you are, of course, entitled to you opinion - silly as it may be. and not so long ago seems to me - has he changed his tune - I didn't see it but I am sure you will give me some quote on a different topic. let me know when he says "we don't have a skills gap we have a job gap and a fair wage gap" - now don't forget the part where he says we don't have a skills gap. he really should take back his inaccurate statement that plays into the hands of the right - don't you agree? it is true that the right wing is waging a strong propaganda war - that does not make what I posted any less true. as usual thanks again fro putting this to the top

the post stands on its own and it is correct in showing that our president is in the pocket of the wealthy and the corporations. that is a fact that the whole world can see even if you cannot. thanks again for keeping it in the top spot

Of course Obama is in the "pocket of the wealthy and corporations." He is a duopolist!

But by saying that bit of truth, you now have to accept the fact that you are now considered a "bitching troll" by the Democrat Disrupter In Chief himself.

And when, and if you get banned for not buying into the partisan bullshit', you will then enter into an elite club called the soap opera of the banned, and the implication that will be put forward is that your voice should not be listened to, and you are a "liar" ...'cause you have been banned! Twisted, eh?!...lololol

well you do know that even a broken clock is right twice a day - the fact that I have agreed with anyone once does not lead to the conclusion that - "you used to agree with bensdad and VQ" - since I have a life I will not go searching the archives to get evidence to the contrary - also because I don't care what you think. and apparently neither does anyone else here - oh maybe your girl friend - I forgot about her. anyway thanks for once again putting my post to the top of the list - notice i changed the headline to make it more clear - we want all to know that Obama is either a shill for corporate America (it cannot be because he is stupid since he is not!) - pushing their propaganda line to blame the American workforce for the economic problems we face. he could put the blame where it belongs - on the top .1% and the corporations they control - in other words the contributors to his $1.1 billion campaign fund. ok, so I will do your work for you - they also contributed to Romney's $1 billion fund which makes the point of all those here who are really occupiers - both parties are in bed with the economic elite!

I thought you mentioned that you would remove the post for copyright infringement but I can't find the comment - you wouldn't remove something like that would you? no need on my part to contact znet - I have been with them since their inception - when they were only a magazine - same as with adbusters. you have no idea what I think of unions since you have never asked. once again thanks for keeping this issue in the spotlight

i am very happy that you care what I think. since you asked I will tell you - I think you are disruptive deliberately misleading and a waste of time. I assume you know that and do it intentionally although I cannot understand why. maybe you could tell me. thanks again for putting this very informative post at the top

"I would be well within my rights as a mod" - so in a leaderless anarchist movement what rights exactly do you have? you would not be well received in any true occupy site like zuccotti park - that is for sure. so you are a mod - wow - who died and put you in charge? really how did that happen - I would like to know who runs the site so maybe I can discuss this with them! can you point me to those who put you in a position of power? you are an Obama supporter and seem to be a mainstream democratic party functionary - not a true occupier so how did this happen. as I am sure you know znet encourages the distribution of their material so contact them if you like to see if they are unhappy. very easy to contact toni through the site or even noam for that matter - ask them if they would like their words taken down from the official occupy wall street site! you have the time to do it so go ahead - make my day. and banned - for what - disagreeing with you? that is a joke anyway - new id and I am at it again - hasn't seemed to stop anyone in the past. as to truncated - yes I do not post whole article - I try to put up what is most important to save time for those reading. anyone with a computer can find the whole thing in about 1 minute - now any more complaints

looks like they removed your response - don't know who does that or why. I have been here a long time but don't really know much about how the site works. I do know you can send a private message by clicking on the name

no I am not - why don't you ask me what I think about things instead of imagining. I will tell you in a very straight forward manner what I believe. many years of study on matters of political economy. those i like to read are zinn, Chomsky, Hudson and alan watts - I can do more if you like.

What is sad and weak about it? You support PR firms. You lack the capacity to engage in discussions that involve international relations and you stand behind a group that attempts to single out people-that don't support libertopian pr shills.

In fact, you enjoy putting up walls of shit and then picking pieces out of articles whilst leaving the rest of the article that doesn't support what you are saying or a link.

what is weak and sad - especially since this is an ows site, is that none of your assertions are true. can you back up what you say? which pr firms do I support and how? I do edit many of the posts I put up but it is incorrect that it is done in a misleading way - again provide evidence - can't do it then just make accusations - very sad girl. lastly say what you mean instead of trying to create confusion - you do not like what I say about Israel - you are on the wrong side of history here and you must know it since you cannot say what you think in plain english. like I said weak

When I said that you were not capable of discussions that involve international relations--I meant it. There is not a doubt in my mind that you firmly believe and are quite passionate about Israel. I came to this conclusion about midway through a prior thread.

What you cannot do- either because you lack the knowledge or, are simply quite lazy, is to look at, for or through different sources for details to different situations that may require different solutions. I suspect that there is a lack of confidence in yourself which is why you rely heavily on analysis and on material that is geared for an emotional response. On the one hand that makes you an easy target. I think you know this and this is what you are actually defending. However, the draw back is that your responses are very emotional and not well thought out or incorporate an analysis that is vague and emotional. You get all tough guy because you are protecting your inadequacy.

That's fine.

It's the whole you act like a douche bag thing that I can do with out. Yes, you wholeheartedly support PR firms. Jeremy is the PR firm. Further, I am not going to waste my time to go back and pull your posts where you are beyond a shadow of a doubt a douche bag.

For example, you become very vehement and angry whenever someone criticizes the Democrats. As an occupier, I find that really strange. We're trying to make a revolution against them, and the other parties!

No need to prove myself. My opinion is you have a very bad attitude. Everyone can make their own mind about that. It's not some scientific claim requiring evidence. Just an opinion. I said it in the hopes that it could help you. Sometimes, people don't realize it when they have a bad attitude or personality traits that are lacking. They need someone to tell them. We can all improve ourselves. No?

sadly you are right on when it comes to where our president and his party stand. my wife is one of those who still believes in Obama - we debate too often. she is concerned about the gop right but I think that the democratic party and it's "left" is the bigger problem. if all of those who still have "hope" for the dems would abandon them we would be on our way to a different world. if they are right and the country elects ted cruz or one of those types then that would be the start of the "revolution." I think we saw that after 8 years of bush - the country elected a black man to make dramatic change but he did not do it! then instead of building on his victory and getting more votes the next election he got 10 million less - what a shame! elizabeth warren for president

I don't care about republicans because they are too far off in their own land. They know what they want, and it has nothing to do with Occupy. Forget them.

However, the Democrats are deluded. They claim to know what they want (and it usually is close to what OWS wants), but they are deluded into thinking the Democrat party actually wants to achieve the goals they want. They are completely fooled. The Democrat party is made up of 1%ers who want to make money and gain power over others. Nothing to do with OWS.

You're right, if all those deluded Democrats would wake up and realize Obama and friends will never give them what they really want, perhaps we could start the revolution.

The only people who care about the 99% are the 99% themselves. We have to start the revolution! We must do it ourselves, not count on politicians to do it for us.

I imagine we mostly agree on all of this but - "revolution" is a frightening word to many of the people we have to reach to make real change. I would imagine that any change will come relatively slowly. the bulk of the American people agree with many of the changes advocated by occupiers but I am not sure they are ready to throw out capitalism and vote in large numbers for a socialist or a revolutionary. seems to be that the best way forward is to propose concrete fairly small steps that will lead to bigger changes as we go forward. americans do not have the understanding of class that most Europeans have. had I been able to vote in nyc I would have voted for deblasio and not the green party candidate.

here is an email I received from a pretty conservative gop supporting (but not stupid) friend after I sent him this post from that absolutely wonderful flippy boy - "i believe the majority of this to be absolutely true. and the 100% failure of this president to generate a creative form of job growth with a live-able wage is his downfall. if only he would come out with some ideas that people could rally around OTHER THAN "re-training", and larger "safety nets". he's a huge disappointment. 0 % inspiration. i've told you a zillion times my own dumb schlubb ideas on creating manufacturing jobs with a live-able wage. i've yet to hear a better one from all the shithead waste of food assholes down there.

now now - watch out or you might get banned for intemperate behavior.as you know anarchists like emma goldman do not believe in voting except as a tactic to be debated on a case by case basis. "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." - that was emma, of course. you do realize that the founders of occupy are anarchists don't you? as for advocating democracy - this is an occupy site or maybe you didn't know that either. occupy and anarchism, by definition advocates democracy. you are right that the gop has a record that is worse on many fronts but you know that does not absolve Obama and the dems from complicity in maintaining the status quo. should I go through the crimes of this administration?. when they say what fdr said in his famous 1936 Madison Square Garden speech, in which he spoke of the hatred he faced from the forces of “organized money,” and declared, “I welcome their hatred.” now when that happens he will not be able to raise $1.1 billion from the forces of organized money.

I guess this guy missed seeing my *Top 45 Lies..." that Obama told at the UN link. I will have to find it.

You should be honored as shooz only sics this vile dude and Ms Friday on people who are really getting under his skin in his quest to bring Occupy into the Democratic Party.

You may believe that you are allowed to be as vulgar as they are, but you would be wrong as you will be banned for being that much of a low-life. And as I pointed out earlier, being banned will be reason to discredit your voice even further if you decide to come back and fight for the principles that you share with most of the people in Occupy.

When Smith calls you a "FRAUD," or "fu..ing, blithering, unicorn idiot," or a "Troll working for the RepuliCon Cult," and uses lots of profanity, you should be doubly honored as that is a sign of his desperation.

I can see that I may have to make another edit on my Infiltration to Disrupt, Divide and Misdirect Is Widespread in Occupy thread, or just put a whole new thread up 'cause some of the tactics used to co-opt Occupy by the Democrats were not covered well enough.

Yes, there is a Church Lady aspect to propriety on OWS-Forum. Yes, Voting changes things and is our savior from fascism, plutocracy and 1% tyranny. What else are we going to fucking do, chant? You idiot! Yes, democracy is a OWS belief, so go to hell you lying troll. Yes, the GOP are the henchmen/goons/cult for the 1%. No, GOP obstruction & sabotage does not make Obama COMPLICIT, you fucking TROLL!! Our Citizens United, Big $ buys elections, status quo is a direct result of our Voter Negligence allowing Bush-Cheney & 2010 tea-baggers to LARGELY turn our government over to the 1% (Organized Money). It's up to us, WE THE PEOPLE, to get out the Vote to correct this INSANE ABERRATION.

let's see 1980 to 2012 - I was working, getting divorced raising a family, going skiing, playing hockey, marching against war and for womens rights - protesting the gop convention in nyc - would you like more of my bio? and no what I post is not confusing - not in any way - you may disagree but that doesn't mean that people of normal intelligence will have trouble understanding the issues. are you and shooz just trying to keep this post up at the top of the list so others will read it - I cannot think of another reason why this is still going on - but thanks for that anyway

Yes, there is a Church Lady aspect to propriety on OWS-Forum. Yes, Voting changes things and is our savior from fascism, plutocracy and 1% tyranny. What else are we going to fucking do, chant? You idiot! Yes, democracy is a OWS belief, so go to hell you lying troll. Yes, the GOP are the henchmen/goons/cult for the 1%. No, GOP obstruction & sabotage does not make Obama COMPLICIT, you fucking TROLL!! Our Citizens United, Big $ buys elections, status quo is a direct result of our Voter Negligence allowing Bush-Cheney & 2010 tea-baggers to LARGELY turn our government over to the 1% (Organized Money). It's up to us, WE THE PEOPLE, to get out the Vote to correct this INSANE ABERRATION.

I am sorry that you don't know our history better but that is not my fault. the great changes in this country have not come through the ballot box - if you need more info on the subject I can provide it. why so hostile - we are on ows you know. tolerance and respect for the views of others - especially when the are historically accurate and yours are not!

oh, come on now. even a 12 year old knows how slavery was eliminated. and the civil rights and women's movement - you know about the freedom riders and the violence and murder surrounding them? don't you know anything about haymarket and the strikes of the 1870's - people had to die for the 8 hour work day - not some simple stroke of the pen. do you realize where you are - occupy wall street - an anarchist uprising not an electoral one.

first let's be clear - you are not ows so knock off the "we" nonsense. second what is posted is not a lie - Obama for sure has in many ways adopted the ideas of his financial backers. how could he not? now you are correct that there are many more issues out there that we have to pay attention to - also correct is that the republican right (and especially the religious right) is extreme in their agenda. they do not frighten me as much as the dems but that is a matter of opinion - granted. as to my agreeing with vq or bensdad on occasion - only a ideologue would not be able to see through your argument. are you and ideologue and what ideology do you ascribe to? it is certainly not anarchy!

you are right - as far as I know ows does not endorse not voting - neither do they endorse voting. are you trying to make this easy for me? and no it will not stop - sorry but as john stewart said to another hack (tucker Carlson) "I'm not your monkey!" I live in nj and what does that have to do with the price of beans? you are right again - the gop is terrible in many ways - women etc - see I agree with you as well as vq. these are all important issues but so is the plight of the bottom 80% of the population, drones, assassinations, the tpp, the bombing of how many countries and 1000 military bases around the world - should I go on?

revolution is the goal, by minds of the young. occupying wall st is a message that leads to occupying the process and political will as well. globally we lag in most statistics, including respect for our government of the united states.